Political workers represent a category of workers whose professional reliance on social media is well-documented. However, while many studies inquire about the role of social media in politics per se, ours is designed to capture political workers’ subjective experiences of what it is like to live and work in the post-digital society. This involves asking to what extent – and at what perceived cost – political workers intentionally seek to self-regulate their media use in the direction of disconnection. Qualitative interviews with 14 Norwegian politicians serve as our window into personal experiences of political work under post-digital conditions and into daily, morally induced dilemmas pertaining to work-related use of digital, connective technology. Our results suggest that today’s political workers are “post-digital experts”, which is required to learn how to endure the entrapping and distracting mechanisms of the post-digital society.
The authors acknowledge funding from the Norwegian Research Council (grant no. 287563) for the project “Intrusive media, ambivalent users and digital detox (DIGITOX)” (2019–2024).